When Extreme's Meet (Phan AU)
by Sbear.72
Summary: Phil Lester's known for being able to drift with everyone. Dan Howell has a reputation for being...undriftable. What could go wrong? But the Kaijus are getting meaner, and Dan's fighting possible PTSD symptoms, and the world is going to hell preetttty fast. Phan Pacific Rim AU
1. Prologue

Phil Lester is wildly considered one of the best Jaeger pilots to have ever lived. When told tis, most people assume he's cocky, violent, your average Chuck Hansen kind of guy. But what made Phil Lester so good was that he was kind of the exact opposite. Phil was kind, silly, a bit of a dork, honestly, but he was damn near impossible to hate. And if you somehow managed to get Lester to hate _you_, well you're too despicable to be behind the wheel of a Jaeger anyway.

Phil Lester was the best pilot around because he could drift with anyone.

Stacker Pentecost sighed, leaning back in his chair and throwing the file in his hands on the desk in front of him.

Dan Howell knew every Jaeger from mark 1's to mark 5's, he could work any machine you put in front of him, fix any issue, save any machine that most technicians would call scrap. The problem was Dan wasn't a technician, or an engineer. He was a pilot. A damn good pilot, too. The problem was no one could drift with him. And not for lack of trying. Pentecost had tried pairing him up with everyone he could find, because when you have a pilot as skilled as Dan Howell presented to you on a silver platter, you do whatever you can to get him in the field. But Stacker Pentecost can't perform miracles.

Howell isn't exactly the most compatible person. He's awkward, sarcastic, and his humor is dryer than the sand pits of Sahara. Not to mention social anxiety and possible mild PTSD on top of his already off-putting personality. All combined, he isn't exactly a Phil Lester when it comes to drift compatibility.

Pentecost jerked upright. He fumbled to grab his records, quickly flipping through his computer until her found the name he was looking for.

PHILIP 'PHIL' LESTER

AGE: 27 SEX: M

Stacker scrolled quickly past information he'd read through more times than he could count.

STATUS: OFF DUTY

Off duty. Currently, Phil Lester, Pentecost's ace in the hole of drifters, was currently unmatched and without mission or partner.

"MAKO!" the young girl comes stumbling into her commanders office, clipboard in hand and smile in place.

"Yes sir?"

Pentecost smiled slightly. There must still be cadets practicing outside for her to address him so formally. "What have you got on Lester, why's he off duty?"

She smirked to him, "We had him paired with Liguori, but then PJ drifted with Chris Kendell on an unimaginably high level. Those two are off on a test run in the Colour Bandit."

He nods, remembering now his amazement when the neural bridge actually created a new scale to display the two men's drift level. Neither had been seen without the other since then.

"Good, I want Howell standing in your footprints in exactly 7 minutes, Mako, bring him here."

The young girl's eyes light up in realization. She turns, and just before she steps out of the room, she turns her head to her commander again.

"That might just work, sir"


	2. Chapter 1

p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"strongChapter 1/strong/p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Phil stood in the observation deck next to Marshal Pentecost, had of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, aka Phil's favourite pace I the entire world, and watched the 20-some guy flinging around the Jaeger room in an engineer harness, zipping from wall to wall and Jaeger to Jaeger, fixing cables and wires and sometimes taking over the fixing of entire limbs all on his own-and finishing faster than the average trained team of at least seven.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""Thought you said he was a pilot?" Phil said to the Marshal without turning away from the curly brown hair as it flung from the mark 2 he was altering to the mark 4 chest piece with-what he apparently deemed to be-major issues.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Pentecost replied without turning his head. "He is. One of the best I've ever seen. There is an actual article written about his abilities in History of the Future. We've got him here because when he can't be behind the wheel he's still saving lives by keeping these guys from malfunctioning. He's the closest thing to an expert that you can get in a shop."p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Phil felt his eyebrows raise. 'History of the Future' is strictly for the people who get recognized in the streets. People like Raleigh Becket, who brings up the discussion of the negative of the drift after that accident with his brother. Pilots need at least 3 kills to even get on HotF's radar. Phil was asked for a spread only a few months ago when he and PJ took down what was Phil's 4th.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""Which Mark did you say he was an expert in?" Phil finally turned for the window to look at his superior.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Pentecost did not show him the same attention. What he did do, was smirk as he watched Howell wipe sweat from his forehead before getting back to work on the nuclear core of the Gypsy Danger. "Why, he's the expert on all of them."p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Phil looked at the search bar on his holographic screen for a moment before leaning forward and typing Dan Howell History of the Future and pressing enter. Immediately thousands if results flew past his screen before settling on the article he was actually looking for. After reading through the paper that-admittedly-Phil had looked up in the first place to make him less enthralled by the drift candidate, he found it had done the exact opposite.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"He'd also learned why Stacker wanted him to try the neural handshake with the 23 year old. Phil knew he had a reputation as the most compatible person, but to hear that someone hadn't been able to properly drift with anyone for as long as Dan-it was almost bad luck to throw to extremes together like that.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Even after the extensive article on Howell, Phil still didn't know why. Why hadn't anyone been able to drift with someone in the peak of their 'relatable' stage of life? Phil reserved to do something he promised himself a long time ago he would never do, and he read a page on Dan from a tabloid.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"And learned something that made his attitude towards the pilot switch from god-like amazement to a heart aching compassion.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Dan Howell – wildly known for his genius piloting of the Mark Anything Jaegers and his stunning good looks – has been noticeably missing from action in the past two Kaiju warnings. When asked for his reasoning, Marshal Stacker Pentecost, Daniel's commanding officer, said "the boy's been through a lot and it's none of [y]our business!"p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Speaking off the record, Pilot Sam Pepper told us that "It's freaky. Did you hear he literally jut topped being able to drift with his partner? I mean, Howell was never easy to drift with in the first place, but to actually become undriftable, that's a whole new section of weird"p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Phil looked into the time stamp o when he stopped going out for Kaiju threats and what could possibly have caused Dan to 'become undriftable' and found the record of Dan's partnership with one 'Louise Pentland', someone Phil had met before and was quite fond of. Apparently, around the time Daniel as sent out to test a prototype miniature Jaeger meant for one pilot he became unable to complete the neural handshake with his copilot. Something happened on that solo mission he won't tell anyone about, and now he's…well…not drift compatible. With anyone they've put him up with.p  
>p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The final line on the record says 'Pentland felt like utter shit. Howell won't talk about his feelings, but they can't be good'p 


End file.
